This invention relates to an apparatus and corresponding process for the transfer of a roll of a continuous strip of material from a location at which the material has been rolled up by a rewinding machine to a storage location thereof.
A paper making machine is normally equipped with a winding device wherein the just manufactured continuous paper web is wound up into a roll. The winding quality of such roll, however, oftentimes fails to meet the quality requirements of the user since it may be funnel-shaped or otherwise irregularly shaped at its edges after leaving the winding device. Rewinding machines, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,354,463 to Cameron et al, have therefore been devised for unwinding an unacceptably wound roll from the winder and rewinding it into a more compact and a better quality roll. Such rewinders are often provided with devices for longitudinally slitting the unwound web so as to effect the rewinding of several continuous strips into rolls of shorter axial lengths as compared to the wound roll.
Similar winders and rewinders are likewise provided for webs of foil, textile fabrics, and the like.
After the continuous strips have been rolled to a predetermined size on a suitable core, they are transferred from the roll-up location of the winding apparatus to a storage location so that the location at which they were rewound is available for the successive rewinding of new rolls from the same continuous strip. During such successive rewinding operations, the strip of material may be diagonally cut when rolled to its predetermined size. A subsequent roll is thereafter rewound on a cylindrical core starting with this cut edge and, after being rewound to a predetermined size, may be again cut for repeating the rewinding operation.
Heretofore, either a crane or so-called thrust units, or devices for ejecting the rolls by pushing, were utilized for transferring these rewound rolls to a storage location. Such thrust units comprise, for example, pivotable grapple arms or clamps which grasp the roll about its circumference for lifting same and transporting it from the rewinding location to a storage location without using any type of guide means in between. Ejectors for the rewound rolls of the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,178,125 to Greding have also been used. The storage location referred to can, for example, include a table having a stop member or members against which the roll rests. Also, as is well known, the storage location may be in the form of a trough of, for example, two guides with round cross-sections, or two carrying rollers adjacent one another.
However, during the utilization of such known transfer devices, it has been found that the rewound rolls, after being perfectly rewound, very often again became funnel-shaped or misaligned at their ends by the time they reached the storage location. Furthermore, with the use of such transfer procedures, the outer layers of the rolls are susceptible to damage when the rolls strike against the stop member at the storage location.